For those of you at the point in your careers when it’s time to consider outsourcing, you are facing quite a challenge. Finding a way to get quality content at a rate that will offer you a profit is not easy. The trick is to develop your skills to the point where you become a qualified editor. You need to be a good spell checker, grammarian, teacher and mentor. Having a gentle touch with nudging writers in the direction you need is important. Hopefully, once you’ve reached this point, you’ve also managed to increase your rates to a profitable point. Here’s a great piece on how to increase your rates, by the way.

For me, it was about establishing myself with an excellent reputation, learning how to sell myself effectively and then building up enough work to sustain myself. I then began bidding on work beyond what I needed at twice the usual rate. It only took a few months for me to establish new clients at the new rate. One older client still gets the old rate, but only because I love the job too much to give it up.

Outsourcing Writing Work

So now I outsource some of my work, and I use Textbroker for most of it. But there are downsides. You don’t really know what you’ll get. You may pay for a level 4 writer, but get level 3 work. Being a softy, I’m not going to reject an article unless its truly junk. I feel bad for the writer putting all that effort in for low pay.

Well, that’s about to change. Textbroker (no affiliation) has changed their rating program. You can now see how writers do it specific areas of the content.

Other improvements are making the job for outsourcers easier. They have implemented new features (which I haven’t tried yet), such as:

1. SEO Options: Keyword-Checking
2. New Order Form
3. Order Templates
4. Automatic Export to WordPress and more
5. Improved Evaluation Options
6. Feedback Tab

The evaluation options are what I’m focusing on today, although I am also excited about the templates option as well. Now you will be able to report on the following components of style when evaluating writers:

- Subject Knowledge
- Spelling and Grammar
- Style, Tone and Phrasing
- Dependability and Responsiveness

I think the biggest problem I have had is with style. Writers who have been spending too much time doing keyword work forget how to write for voice, which is most important to me. Style is easily fixed when I post the work, which is why I still use Textbroker. It is still the most dependable source for work I have found, with the fewest complications in managing. It’s quick and easy.

Textbroker Rating and Review

One good place to start writing online is at Textbroker. This one-of-a-kind website pays only a few dollars per article, but the staff will rate your writing, showing you if you have the skills to write online. You may also work towards better writing with each submission and improve your rating. Textbroker rates its writers on a scale of 2 to 5 with 2 being the lowest acceptable standard. If you can achieve a rating of 4, you probably have what it takes to become a professional writer.

Textbroker will pay you after your minimum balance reaches $10. You must request your payment to get the funds transfered to you via Paypal on the 10th of the month. If you request payoff after the 5th of the month, you must wait until the next month to get your funds.

Textbroker does not pay alot and that is why I recommend it for those new to writing online. However, I still use Textbroker as a great source re-write assignments frequently. Re-writes require less time because all the research is already done. You only need to re-word the article, saving you time.

The first order I filled at Textbroker gave a meager return because I started out with a 3 star rating. After a little practice, I increased to 4 stars and began making better money. I never did make 5 stars and I know it is not an easy task from talking to other writers about it. Pay for me averaged. $3.75 per article. Most articles were around 500 words. When I figured in the time it took, the hourly rate was about $7.50 per hour, but I was a much slower writer back then. Experienced writers may be able to eke out twice that. No great, not bad.

If you are ready to get started with Textbroker, click here.

I was recently contacted by Aric Mitchel, whose friendly face you can see posted to the left. Aric was having trouble finding a way to attract writers to work under him. He was considering Craigslist but was concerned it might look like a scam, not to mention the $25 you have to shell out to post a job ad there. Being new to hiring writers, Aric had tried Constant-Content and Absolute Write with limited success.

I couldn’t add Aric’s listing in the top ten because I am working to help established writers find the best-paying work. But it is also important to me to help fellow writers in other ways as well. The solution was to help Aric by letting him place a free ad there for a while.

Sourcing Content

This interaction with Aric got me to thinking. I hire writers under me as part of my Content Management and Editing gig over at billeater. While I had found my writers at Craigslist, I started to think that maybe I could have followed another course more affordably. After doing a little research, I found that I could have gotten work from the same sources where I got my start as a writer.

Where to Find Writers on the Cheap

I have a little bit of personal conflict writing on this topic because I want us all to make better income as Web writers. But we all have to start somewhere. I was writing for less than $4 to $7 per article when I started at Textbroker, making just $2-$3 an article. I even wrote for passive income sites, making pennies, just to build a portfolio and practice my craft. Each job does lead to a better one and each job makes you a better writer so that you can get those high paying jobs more easily. Add to that the understanding that many of us are editors who need to source content, and I think I really should cover this topic.

Textbroker

I have to say this is the best source I have tried for the money. I’m not saying I found the best writers, but I did find writers who could do the job well enough that I could edit and make them work. A $10 article needed about 15 minutes of editing, with most of the research I wanted already done. For $15 I was able to secure an article that needed very little editing on my part. Each of these was delivered within hours of my request, which was just astounding. In retrospect, this might have been the better way for me to go, instead of using Craigslist, but that would require a lot of follow up and I’d have to come up with articles and post titles myself.

Constant-Content

As a writer, Constant-Content has been hit or miss for me. I do best around the holidays, probably because bloggers are too busy to write their own stuff, making them willing to pay $60 for an article. After the 35% commission, I ended up making $35. There are some articles available for $10 or $20 but I’ve never seen an article with enough depth for that price to use as a source for content.

Absolute Write

I have not tried AbsoluteWrite. I know the forum is a little rough, not the type of encouraging atmosphere I believe writers should provide each other. I’m also turned off by the “nothing but ads” above the fold of the forum. You can try it out and see how you do.

Craigslist

I received an avalanche of responses to my ad on craigslist. I heard from writers of every ilk, from published professionals to beginners. Within seven days, I had three people I needed. One ended up being a hit and run writer, delivering once and disappearing. The other two are still with me, one is excellent, the other is good enough. Either way, it worked out for me. I have them come up with their own article ideas, sending me the pieces I need on established schedules so I don’t have to chase them down. It works well.

eCopywriters

I see eCopywriters having trouble getting orders filled on time regularly, but I do not know how they handle it, since I have never been on the hiring side of that equation. I would hope they would have some staff writers who get that stuff done on time. Because they do not publish their rates, I have no idea if they can source content affordably.

Writers, what has your experience been with these services? Let us know via your comments below!

There isn’t a day that goes by that someone does not come here looking for information on how to write for eCopywriters. Once you have been writing for eCopywriters for a while, it’s easy to forget the initial frustration you felt trying to figure out how the heck to apply. They only advertise occasionally and you’re essentially lucky if you stumble upon to the secret.

How to Get Approved as an eCopywriters Writer

It’s quite simple really, you just go to http://www.ecopywriters.com/login/ and register as a user. From there, you will be able to access information about how to become a writer for eCopywriters. You will have to submit a sample of your writing for approval. I applied on June 8, 2009 and my writing sample was approved the same day. So, if you log on this morning, you’ll probably writing for eCopywriters this afternoon!

The Pay

eCopywriters says that those who write well and consistently for them will graduate to higher rankings, earning them better pay. I do not feel motivated by the .018 per word rate they pay when I can often find jobs for .05 per word or more on my own. If there was a more concrete ranking structure, I would be more motivated to go after the goal of a higher ranking. I am also frustrated when I try to write regularly for them but cannot find any assignments.

Comparison with Other Regular Gigs

While I’m sure it could be a good gig if you put in the time and effort, eCopywriters is a backup for me. It’s where I go during down time to pick up a few more assignments. Better pay can often be had at Helium Marketplace. I even sometimes use Textbroker because they are never lacking for assignments. In addition, eCopywriters does not always have something for my writing level. The trick is to have several resources to fall back on. These are mine:

eCopywriters (1.8 cents per word starting out)
Textbroker (.007 cents per word starting out. Level 4 = 1.4 cents per word)
Helium Marketplace ($16 – $40 or more per 400 – 500 word article)

I used to write for WiseGeek as well. Getting approved to write for them is no small accomplishment, but following their style guidelines is a lot of work for about .02 per word. The keyword density requirements of 2% are maddening when you know they are just setting themselves up to be tagged as spam. I do miss the regular availability of work, though. There was always something I could write about. It just took too much time to write to their style.

Types of Assignments

When compared to Textbroker, eCopywriter’s assignments are much more respectful. No one is going to ask you to write and then spin an article for .014 a word. Textbroker is chocked full of cheesy assignments, although there are quite a few good ones too. One assignment raked in $96 for me in a single day writing local pieces for a storage business. While I can make double that when I have a steady stream of freelance work, that’s not always possible. I’ll take the $96 when I can get it.

Time to Approval

I like the service at Textbroker better. I have four articles on eCopywriters that have been waiting in the queue for approval for over a month. That’s money I’m not getting paid for work I did quite some time ago. Textbroker usually approves work within a day or. Helium takes a long time to approve, a couple of weeks, but the pay is much better (that is of course if you win after writing the article!). I don’t mind waiting two weeks for $40. I do mind waiting that long for $10.

In the end, I think eCopywriters may be worth your while. If you can motivate yourself to keep plugging away at it, you may increase your ranking and pay. If anyone has actually accomplished this, we’d all like to know about it. How disappointing would it be if we found out no one ever gets promoted?!?!

When I started writing online nine months ago, I was terrified. I was so afraid that my writing would not be good enough and that I would be rejected or ridiculed. I had no idea what to do or where to turn. I read a lot of advice online about where to write, but there was very little about what to write. What I found out is that writing online is easy to learn. After only nine months, it is now my full-time career.

Textbroker

When I first started, I surfed the web for places that paid for writing. I decided to try out Textbroker.com, a site that pays very little, but offers guaranteed work. That was important to me because I did not like the idea of spending a lot of time writing on article sites, maybe making only a few cents or nothing at all for my hard work. At least Textbroker was offering a few bucks for each article.

Writing for Textbroker

To get approved as an author for Textbroker, you must write a sample piece. The staff will review and rate your writing and then approve you as a writer (or not). My first piece did not go over so well and I was given a rating of “2.” This meant that I would get about $1.70 for every article I wrote, still better than pennies or nothing.

How to do Rewrites

Because I was unsure how good my writing was, I started out doing “rewrites.” You do a rewrite by taking an article and rewording it so the new article is not recognizable from the old, but they both give the same information. By taking on rewrites, I could see what style writers used and began to get an idea of how I should be writing and what I should be writing about.

After writing only five pieces or so for Textbroker, I was able to increase my rating to a “4,” which is only second to the top-level professional writers. This gave me a lot of confidence to move forward and write more, trying out original articles.

How to Write from Scratch

When you write from scratch, you have to research information at other websites and come up with your own ideas. Sometimes you even need to write the title. The buyer may give you instructions about which keywords to use, where to place them and how often to use them in the article. Although it takes a lot of time at first, once you do it a few times, you become much quicker and can write an article in about ½ hour. Although you will only make about $10 per hour that way on Textbroker, it is a great place to get started and learn the ropes.

Why You need to Move Beyond Textbroker

When you write for Textbroker, you are a “ghostwriter,” meaning you have no rights to the article and cannot claim it as your own. If you want to get paid good money for your writing, you will need to move onto revenue sharing sites so that you can build your own portfolio with your name attached to the articles. This gives you a body of “samples” to show prospective employers. I will go over how to move beyond Textbroker next time.

Today Textbroker sent out an email notifying users that they will be offering special bonuses from 3/13 to 3/19 to help manage the 1,700 orders on the books. This is a first for Textbroker, a site than first launched in 2008. Textbroker is the only site of its kind, posting content requests that pay whoever completes the project first. Writers are rated based on the quality of their writing after each submission which effects how much they can earn on each assignment. While the pay is not stellar, it can help a lot when things are tight.

The bonus week runs 03/13 to 03/19/2009, with bonuses up to 45$, depending on your earnings during that week. The bonuses will apply to Open Orders released (completed) during the bonus week that are later accepted by the client (within 14 days after the bonus week). Direct orders will not count towards a bonus.

Per the Textbroker email,
“The 5 bonus income levels are structured as follows:
$10 income = $ 1 bonus
$30 income = $ 3 additional bonus, a total of $ 4 bonus
$60 income = $ 5 additional bonus, a total of $ 9 bonus
$120 income = $11 additional bonus, a total of $ 20 bonus
$250 income = $25 additional bonus, a total of $ 45 bonus

You will receive appropriate payment within 30 minutes after reaching each bonus level.”

Our resident writer was lucky enough to stumble upon a bulk writing order last week on Textbroker that netted about $90 in one day. Though a rare occurrence, how lovely it would be to find a similar order during the bonus week! While we strive to write at least one Textbroker piece per day to keep our skills sharp, we will be focusing on on earning that $45 bonus! To do that, however, it is likely we will have to write about 50 articles in that week.  If there are enough rewrites available, it is technically possible.

For more tips on how to make more money with Textbroker, read this.